Mischievous behavior
Devo at a bus stop in Akron in 1978. Mark Mothersbaugh stands on the left as Casale waves in the back.
(Photo courtesy janetmacoska.com)
Perhaps Devo’s biggest stunt at Kent State was the music video for “Jocko Homo.” Filmed in the Student Center Governance Chambers, the video features Mothersbaugh posturing himself as a mad scientist while the rest of Devo plays space aliens.
The aliens respond to Mothersbaugh’s call, “Are we not men?” with, “We are Devo.” By the song’s industrial-sounding bridge, the members of Devo are wriggling around in latex bags on the table in the Governance Chambers while a sea of extras cheers on the antics.
The video was finished in 1975, well before MTV began broadcasting. The inspiration for the video came from seeing laser discs in a science magazine and then taking the initiative to become forerunners of the music video era.
“Arguably, you could say that it was the first MTV-generation film,” Mothersbaugh says. “We made that film specifically for something that didn’t exist yet, which was music television and a new media of sound and vision.”
“Like every good smart-ass, Dada kind of person, we spun some really high-minded, academic reason we needed to do a film in there.”
Casale and Mothersbaugh helped pay for the video by opening a graphic design shop in Quaker Square in Akron. The duo kept the shop open long enough to earn $3,500. Then it was just a matter of convincing Kent State to let them use the room.
“Like every good smart-ass, Dada kind of person, we spun some really high-minded, academic reason we needed to do a film in there,” Casale says. “We presented it as a serious academic film. We knew they’d be freaked if they knew the real content, but we secured the right to the Governance Chambers for about four hours.”
The video was later entered into the Ann Arbor film festival and took first place for best short film.
Moving backward, looking forward
If you ask Casale whether de-evolution is still happening today, you will get a very direct answer.
“I never thought there could be a worse incident or a worse time at that point in my life. I saw visions of a fascist America,” Casale says of the early ’70s. “I’ve lived long enough to say I was wrong. I think the country we live in today is far worse than the one I lived in then. I would give anything to go back and be in that time again.”
When the members of Devo aren’t working at their day jobs, they take their message of de-evolution to the road. The band hopes to tour with the B-52’s this summer, although Mothersbaugh and his wife’s plans to adopt a child from China may cut into tour time. Plans are being made for Mothersbaugh to bring his art exhibition to the Akron Art Museum in 2007.
Casale is returning to his blues roots with a record he hopes to put out with Warner Brothers this year. Jihad Jerry and the Evil Doers, as the project is titled, may even make an appearance in the clubs if demand is high enough. But, “Mine’s not a holy war,” Casale says of his project’s title. “It’s a war on stupidity, as futile and vanquished as the war on drugs.”
Several of the band’s costumes were on display several years ago at the Fashion Museum, but signs of Devo around Kent State are few and far between. Perhaps this is not entirely surprising, since the group’s legacy is one of artistic agitation and anarchy.
“Nobody had a name for (what we were doing),” Casale says. “They weren’t labeling it — except troublemaker.”
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